Need to stop & restart PPTP VPN services every few weeks!

[starbuck]

Hi Folks,

I have an xserve running 10.4.9 up until recently everything had been running fine but recently I’ve had to restart the PPTP VPN Services every few weeks, due to users getting stuck at Authenticating.

From what I have read if you set-up a range of addresses from 192.168.1.200 to 220, each remote connection grabs a new address until it reaches the last IP address, then it starts back at the beginning again.

In my case it gets to the last IP address and users fails to connect getting stuck at Authenticating, I’ve tried changing the IP range with no effect.

I have the following services running on the server AFP / Mail / VPN and Web.

Has anyone come across this problem ?

No Updates have been installed between the server working and not working.

Thanks for your time

[starbuck]

To keep the service up and running a bit longer I had extended the range 🙂

But I believe I have resolved the problem I deleted the com.apple.RemoteAccess.plist file, then dropped the range down to just 10 IP’s which has been working a treat.

Looking at the logs I could see nothing strange.

Thanks

[starbuck]

Poo!

The server is playing up again had to restart the vpn service again.

Looking at the logs this is the error I’m getting.

Sat Sep 1 00:03:05 2007 : IPCP: Maximum Config-Requests exceeded
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfReq id=0x2 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x1e ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : ipcp: returning Configure-ACK
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfAck id=0x2 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x1e ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x1f ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x1f ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x20 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x20 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x21 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x21 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x22 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x22 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x23 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x23 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x24 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x24 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x25 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x25 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x26 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x26 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x27 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x27 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x28 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x28 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x29 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x29 ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x2a ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x2a ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x2b ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x2b ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : sent [IPCP ConfReq id=0x2c ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : rcvd [IPCP ConfRej id=0x2c ]
Sat Sep 1 00:03:08 2007 : IPCP: Maximum Config-Requests exceeded

[starbuck]

I’ve set the client to link in using 128bit only.

So far so good but how could you see that the client machine was trying to connect in via 40bit not 128bit ?

Again thank you for your time.

[starbuck]

Good News

After switching the clients to 128 bit only, I’ve had no need to restart the VPN Services.

Thanks for the tip.

[Author]

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